poet Xore Brocbureg 

THE RETREAT OF A 
POET NATURALIST 

Clara Barrus, M.D. 





JOHN BURROUGHS AT SLABSIDES 



(poe^ Bon (^xoc^utte 

THE RETREAT OF A 
POET NATURALIST 

By • 
CLARA BARRUS, M.D. 




BOSTON 

THE POET LORE COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

1905 



Copyright, 1904, by Clara Barrus. 
All rights reserved 






J'U88ARY ot CONGBtSS' 

JUL S3 1906 

COPY a. 1 



PRINTED AT 

THE GORHAM PRESS 

BOSTON, U. S. A. 



THE RETREAT OF A POET 

NATURALIST 

WE are all coming more and more to 
like the savor of the wild and the 
unconventional. Perhaps it is just 
this savor or suggestion of free 
fields and woods, both in his life 
and in his books, that causes so many persons 
to seek out John Burroughs in his retreat 
among the trees and rocks on the hills that 
skirt the western bank of the Hudson. To 
Mr. Burroughs more perhaps than to any 
other living American might be applied these 
w^ords in Genesis : " See, the smell of my son 
is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath 
blessed" — so redolent of the soil and of the 
hardiness and plentitude of rural things is 
the influence that emanates from him. His 
works are as the raiment of the man, and to 
them adheres something as racy and whole- 
some as is yielded by the life-giving, fertile 
soil. 

We are prone to associate the names of our 
three most prominent literary naturalists: 
Gilbert White of England and Thoreau and 
John Burroughs of America, — men who 
have been so en rapport with nature that, 

3 



4 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

while ostensibly only disclosing the charms 
of their adorable mistress, they have at the 
same time subtly communicated much of their 
own wide knowledge of nature, and have per- 
manently enriched our literature as well. 

In thinking of Gilbert White one invari- 
ably thinks also of Selborne, his open-air 
parish; in thinking of Thoreau one as natur- 
ally recalls his humble shelter on the banks of 
Walden Pond; and it is coming to pass that 
in thinking of John Burroughs one thinks 
likewise of his hidden farm high on the 
wooded hills that overlook the Hudson, 
nearly opposite to Poughkeepsie. It is there 
that he has built himself a picturesque re- 
treat, a rustic house named Slabsides. I find 
that to many persons the word Slabsides gives 
the impression of a dilapidated, ramshackle 
kind of a place. This impression is an incor- 
rect one. The cabin is a well-built two-story 
structure, its uneuphonious but fitting name 
having been given it because its outer w^alls are 
formed of bark-covered slabs. " My friends 
frequently complain," said Mr. Burroughs to 
a recent visitor, "because I have not given 
my house a prettier name, but this name just 
expresses the place, and the place just meets 
the want that I felt for something simple, 
homely, secluded, — in fact, something with 
the bark on." 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 5 



Both Gilbert White and Thoreau became 
identified with their respective environments 
almost to the exclusion of other fields. The 
minute observations of White, and his records 
of them, extending over forty ^ years, were 
almost entirely confined to the district of Sel- 
borne. He tells us that he finds " that that 
district produces the greatest variety which is 
the most examined." The thoroughness with 
which he examined his own locality is attested 
by his " Natural History of Selborne," a book 
which has lived more than a hundred years 
albeit we are at a loss to comprehend the 
secret of its longevity. Thoreau was such a 
stay-at-home that he refused to go to Paris 
lest he miss something of interest in Con- 
cord. "I have traveled a good deal — in 
Concord," he says in his droll way. And 
one of the most delicious instances of provin- 
ciality, if one may so call it, that I ever came 
across is that of Thoreau's returning Dr. 
Kane's "Arctic Voyages " to a friend who had 
lent him the book, with the remark that 
" Most of the phenomena therein recorded 
are to be observed about Concord." In 
thinking of John Burroughs, however, the 
thought of the author's mountain home as the 
material and heart of his books does not come 
so readily to consciousness. For most of us 



6 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

who have felt the charm of his lyrical prose 
both In his outdoor books and In his " Indoor 
Studies " were familiar with him as an author 
long before we knew there was a Slabsides: 
long before there was one, In fact, since Mr. 
Burroughs has been leading his readers to 
nature near forty years, while the picturesque 
refuge we are now coming to associate with 
him has been In existence only about nine 
years. 

John Burroughs, our poet-naturalist, 
seems to have appropriated all out-of-doors 
for his stamping ground. He had given us In 
his unaffected limpid prose Intimate glimpses 
of the hills and streams and pastoral farms 
of his native country; he has taken us down 
the Pepacton, the stream of his boyhood; we 
have traversed with him the " Heart of the 
Southern Catskllls," and the valleys of the 
Neversink and of the Beaverklll ; we have sat 
on the banks of the Potomac and sailed down 
the Saguenay; we have had a glimpse of the 
Blue Grass region and "A Taste of Maine 
Birch" (true, Thoreau gave us this, too, and 
other "Excursions" as well); we have 
walked with him the lanes of " Mellow Eng- 
land " ; journeyed " In the Carlyle Country " ; 
and gazed at the azure glaciers of Alaska; 
and doubtless shall. In time, when they have 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 7 

sunk in far enough, hear from Mr. Bur- 
roughs about his recent wanderings in Florida 
and Jamaica, and his still more recent adven- 
tures in the Yellowstone. 

John Burroughs Is thus seen not to be un- 
traveled, yet he Is no wanderer. No man 
ever had the home feeling stronger than has 
he; none is more completely under the spell 
of a dear and familiar locality, as all his 
essays testify. Somewhere he has said: 
" Let a man stick his staff Into the ground any- 
where and say, 'This is home,' and describe 
things from that point of view, or as they 
stand related to that spot — the weather, the 
fauna, the flora — and his account shall have 
an interest to us it could not have if not thus 
located and defined." 

Before hunting out Mr. Burroughs in his 
mountain hermitage, let us glance at his con- 
ventional abode, " Riverby," in West Park, 
Ulster County, New York. This has been 
his home for more than twenty-five years. 
Having chosen this place by the river, he 
built his house of stone, quarried from the 
neighboring hills, planted a vineyard on the 
sloping hillside, and there he has successfully 
combined the business of grape-culture with 
his pursuits and achievements as a literary 
naturalist. More than half his books have 



8 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

been written since he has dwelt at Riverby — 
the earlier ones having been written when he 
was a clerk In the treasury department In 
Washington — In an atmosphere supposedly 
unfriendly to literary work. It was not, 
however, until he gave up his work in Wash- 
ington, and his later position as a bank ex- 
aminer In the eastern part of New York State, 
that he seemed to come into his own. Busi- 
ness life he had long known could never be 
congenial to him, literary pursuits alone were 
likewise insufficient; the long line of yeoman 
ancestry back of him cried out for recogni- 
tion. He felt the need of closer contact with 
the soil, of having land to till and cultivate. 
This need, an ancestral one, was as impera- 
tive as his need of literary expression, an In- 
dividual one. Hear what he says after hav- 
ing plowed in his new vineyard for the first 
time : " How I soaked up the sunshine today ! 
At night I glowed all over; my whole being 
had had an earth bath; such a feeling of 
freshly-plowed land in every cell of my brain. 
The furrow had struck In; the sunshine had 
photographed it upon my soul." Later Mr. 
Burroughs built him a little study somewhat 
apart from his dwelling, to which he could 
retire and muse and write whenever the mood 
impelled him. This little one-room study, 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 9 

covered with chestnut bark, is on the brow of 
a hill which slopes to the river; it commands 
an extended view of the Hudson. But even 
this did not meet his requirements. The 
formality and routine of conventional life 
palled on him; the expanse of the Hudson, 
the noise of railway and steamboat wearied 
him ; he craved something more retired, more 
primitive, more homely. " You cannot have 
the same kind of attachment and sympathy 
with a great river; it does not flow through 
your affections like a lesser stream," he says, 
thinking, no doubt, of the trout brooks that 
thread his father's farm, of Montgomery 
Hollow Stream, of the Red Kill, and of 
others that his boyhood knew. Accordingly 
he cast about for some sequestered spot in 
which to make himself a sort of hermitage. 

For several years previous to building his 
woodland retreat, during his excursions in 
the vicinity of West Park, Mr. Burroughs 
had lingered oftenest in these hills back of 
the Hudson and parallel with it, where he 
now makes his summer home. He had fished 
and rowed in Black Pond, sat by its falls in 
the primitive forest, sometimes with a book, 
sometimes with his son, or with some other 
hunter and fisher of congenial tastes, and on 
one memorable day In April, years agone, 



lo The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

he had tarried there with Walt Whitman. 
There, seated on a fallen tree, Whitman 
wrote this description of the place which was 
later printed in *' Specimen Days " : "I jot 
this memorandum in a wild scene of woods 
and hills where we have come to visit a water- 
fall. I never saw finer or more copious hem- 
locks, many of them large, some old and 
hoary. Such a sentiment to them, secretive, 
shaggy, what I call weather-beaten and let- 
alone — a rich underlay of ferns, yew sprouts, 
and mosses, beginning to be spotted with the 
early summer wild flowers. Enveloping all, 
the monotone and liquid gurgle from the 
hoarse, impetuous, copious fall — the green- 
ish-tawny, darkly transparent waters plung- 
ing with velocity down the rocks, with patches 
of milk-white foam — a stream of hurrying 
amber, thirty feet wide, risen far back in the 
hills and woods, now rushing with volume — 
every hundred rods a fall, and sometimes 
three or four in that distance. A primitive 
forest, druidical, solitary, and savage — not 
ten visitors a year — broken rocks every- 
where, shade overhead, thick under foot with 
leaves — a just palpable wild and delicate 
aroma." 

"Not ten visitors a year" — that may 
have been true when Whitman described the 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 1 1 

place, but we know It is different now. 
Troops of Vassar girls come to visit the her- 
mit of Slabsides, and are taken to these fa,lls; 
nature lovers, and those who only think them- 
selves nature lovers, come from far and near; 
Burroughs clubs, boys' schools, girls' schools, 
pedestrians, cyclists, artists, authors, report- 
ers, poets, — young and old, renowned and 
obscure, — from April till November seek 
out this lover of nature, who is a lover of 
human nature as well, who gives himself and 
his time generously to those who find him. 
When the friends of Socrates asked him 
where they should bury him he said: "You 
may bury me if you can find me." Not all 
who seek John Burroughs really find him; 
he is not one that mixes well with every new- 
comer; a person must either have something 
of Mr. Burroughs' own cast of mind, or else 
must be of a temperament that is capable of 
genuine sympathy with him, in order to find 
the real man. He withdraws into his shell 
before persons of uncongenial temperaments; 
to such he can never really speak — they see 
Slabsides, but they don't see Burroughs. Mr. 
Burroughs is, however, never curt nor dis- 
courteous to any one. Unlike Thoreau, who 
" put the whole of nature between himself 
and his fellows," Mr. Burroughs leads his 



12 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

fellows to nature, although it is sometimes, 
doubtless, with the feeling that one can lead 
a horse to water but can't make him drink, 
for of all the sightseers that journey to Slab- 
sides there must of necessity be many that 
Oh and Ah a good deal, but never really get 
any farther in their study of nature than that. 
Still it can scarcely fail to be salutary even to 
these, to get away from the noise and the 
strife of everyday life in city and town, and 
see how sane, simple, and wholesome life is 
when it is lived in a sane and simple and 
wholesome way. Somehow it helps one to 
get a clearer sense of the relative value of 
things; it makes one ashamed of his petty 
potterings over trifles to witness this exempli- 
fication of the plain living and high thinking 
which so many preach about and so few 
practice. 

"The thing which a man's nature calls 
him to do — what else so well worth doing? " 
asks this writer. The first thing that im- 
presses one after glancing around this well- 
built cabin, with the necessities of body and 
soul close at hand, is a sort of vicarious satis- 
faction that here, at least, is one man who has 
known what he wanted to do and has done it. 
We are glad that Gilbert White made pas- 
toral calls on his outdoor parishioners, the 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 13 

birds, the toads, the turtles, the snails, and 
the earth-worms, although we often wonder 
If he evinced a like conscientiousness toward 
his human parishioners; we are glad that 
Thoreau left the manufacture of lead pencils 
to become, as Emerson jocosely complained, 
"the leader of a huckleberry party," — glad, 
because these were the things their na- 
tures called them to do, and in so doing 
they best suited themselves and enriched their 
fellows, — they literally went away that they 
might come again to us in a closer, truer way 
than had they tarried in our midst. It must 
have been in answer to a similar imperative 
need of his own that John Burroughs in his 
later years has chosen to hie himself to the 
secluded yet accessible spot where his moun- 
tain cabin is built. 

"As the bird feathers her nest with down 
plucked from her own breast," says Mr. Bur- 
roughs in one of his early essays, " so one's 
spirit must shed itself upon its environment 
before it can brood and be at all content." 
Here at Slabsides one feels that its master 
does brood and is content. It is an ideal loca- 
tion for a man of his temperament; it affords 
him the peace and seclusion he so much de- 
sires, yet is not so far away that he is shut off 
from human fellowship ; for he is no recluse ; 



14 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

his human sympathies are broad and deep; 
unlike Thoreau, who asserts that It Is " a law 
that you cannot have a deep sympathy with 
both man and nature," and that " those quali- 
ties that bring you near to the one estrange 
you from the other," Mr. Burroughs likes his 
kind; he Is the most accessible, I beheve, of 
any notable iVmerican writer — a fact which 
is perhaps a drawback to him In his literary 
work, his submission to being hunted out, 
often being taken advantage of, no doubt, by 
persons who are in no real sense nature lovers, 
but who go to his retreat merely to see the 
gentle hermit in hiding there. 

After twelve years acquaintance with his 
books I yielded to the Impulse, often felt be- 
fore, to write to Mr. Burroughs and tell him 
what a joy his books had been to me. In 
answering my letter he had said: "The 
genuine responses that come to an author 
from his unknown readers, judging from my 
own experience, are always very welcome. It 
Is no Intrusion but rather an inspiration." A 
gracious Invitation to make him a visit came 
to me later. 

The visit was made In September. In less 
than two hours after setting out I arrived at 
West Park, the little station on the West 
Shore Railroad, where I found Mr. Bur- 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 15 

roughs in waiting. The day was gray and 
somewhat forbidding, not so the author's 
greeting; his almost instant recognition and 
his quiet welcome made me feel that I had 
always known him. The feeling of comrade- 
ship that I had experienced in reading his 
books was realized in his presence. With 
market-basket on arm he started off at a 
brisk pace along the country road, first look- 
ing to see if 1 was well shod, then warn- 
ing me that it was quite a climb to Slabsides. 
His kindly face, framed with snowy hair, was 
familiar to me, having seen many pictures of 
him. He was dressed in olive-brown clothes, 
"his old experienced coat" blending in color 
with the tree-trunks and the soil with which 
one felt sure it had often been in close com- 
munion. 

We soon left the country road and struck 
into a woodland path, going up through 
quiet, cathedral-like woods till we came to an 
abrupt rocky stairway which my companion 
climbed with ease and agility despite his five 
and sixty years. 

I paused to examine some mushrooms, and 
finding a species that I knew to be edible, be- 
gan nibbling it. " Don't taste that," he said 
imperatively, but I laughed and nibbled away. 
With a mingling of anxiety and curiosity he 



i6 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

inquired: "Are you sure it's all right? Do 
you really like them? I never could, I'm 
sure; they are so uncanny — the gnomes or 
evil genii, or hobgoblins of the vegetable 
world — / give them a wide berth." 

He pointed to a rock in the distance where 
he said he sometimes sat and sulked. '' You 
sulk, and own up to it, too? " I asked. " Yes, 
and own up to it, too. Why not? Don't 
you?" 

"Are there any bee-trees around here?" 
I ask, for I remember that in one of his es- 
says he has said: "If you would know the 
delights of bee hunting and how many sweets 
such a trip yields besides honey, come with 
me some bright, warm, late September or 
early October day. It is the golden season of 
the year, and any errand or pursuit that takes 
us abroad upon the hills or by the painted 
woods and along the amber-colored streams 
at such a time is enough." Had I not read 
this invitation time and again and appropri- 
ated it to myself? Here was a September 
day, if not a bright one, and here were the 
painted woods, and somehow I felt almost 
aggrieved that he did not immediately pro- 
pose going in quest of wild honey. Instead 
he only replied : " I don't know whether 
there are bee-trees around here now or not. 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 17 

I used to find a good deal of wild honey over 
at a place that I spoke of casually as Mount 
Hymettus, and was much surprised later to 
find they have so put it down on the newer 
maps of this region. Wild honey is delect- 
able, but I pursued that subject till I sucked 
it dry. I haven't done much about it these 
later years." So we are not to gather wild 
honey, I find, but what of that, am I not 
actually walking in the woods with John Bur- 
roughs ? 

Up, up, we climb, an ascent of about a mile 
and a quarter from the railway station. 
Emerging from the woods we come rather 
suddenly upon a reclaimed rock-girt swamp, 
the most of which is marked off in long green 
lines of celery. This swamp was formerly a 
lake bottom; its rich black soil, and three 
perennial springs near by, made Mr. Bur- 
roughs decide to drain and reclaim the soil 
and compel it to yield celery, lettuce, and 
other exceptionally fine garden produce. 

Nestling under gray rocks, on the edge of 
the celery garden, embowered in forest trees, 
is the vine-covered cabin Slabsldes. 

What a feeling of peace and aloofness 
comes over one as he looks up at the rocky 
encircling hills! The few cabins scattered 
about on other rocks are at a just comfortable 



1 8 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

distance to be neighborly, but not too neigh- 
borly. Would one be lonesome here? Aye, 
lonesome, but 

" Not melancholy, — no, for it is green 
And bright and fertile, furnished in itself 
With the few needful things that life requires; 
In rugged arms how soft it seems to lie, 
How tenderly protected ! " 

Mr. Burroughs has given to those who 
contemplate building a house some sound ad- 
vice in his essay "The Roof Tree." There 
he has said that a man makes public procla- 
mation of what are his tastes and his manners, 
or his want of them, when he builds his house. 
He has also said that if we can only keep our 
pride and vanity in abeyance and forget that 
all the world is looking on, we may be reason- 
ably sure of having beautiful houses. Tried 
by his own test, we find that he has no reason 
to be ashamed of his tastes nor of his man- 
ners when Slabsides is critically examined. 
Blending with its surroundings, it is coarse, 
strong, and substantial without; within it is 
snug and comfortable; its wide door bespeaks 
hospitality; its low, broad roof, protection 
and shelter; its capacious hearth, cheer; all 
its appointments for the bodily needs bespeak 
simpHcity and frugahty; and its books and 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 19 

pictures, and the conversation of the host — 
are they not there for the needs that bread 
alone will not supply? 

" Mr. Burroughs, why don't you paint 
things?" asked a little boy of four who had 
been spending a happy day at Slabsldes, but 
who, at nightfall, while nestling In Mr. Bur- 
roughs's arms, seemed suddenly to realize that 
this rustic home Is very different from any- 
thing he had seen before. " I don't like 
things painted, my little man; that Is just why 
I came up here — to get away from paint and 
polish — just as you liked to have on your 
overalls today and play on the grass. Instead 
of keeping on that pretty blue dress your 
mamma wanted you to keep clean." " Oh ! " 
said the child In a knowing tone, and one felt 
that he understood. But that Is another 
story. 

The time of which I am speaking, that gray 
September day — what a memorable day It 
was ! How cheery the large, low room looked 
when Mr. Burroughs replenished the smold- 
ering fire ! " I sometimes come up here even 
In winter, build a fire and stay for an hour or 
more, with long, sad, sweet thoughts and 
musings," he said. He Is justly proud of the 
huge stone fireplace and chimney which he 
helped to construct himself; he also helped 



20 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

to hew the trees and build the house. " What 
joy went Into the building of this retreat! I 
never expect to be so well content again." 
Then musing, he added: "It is a comfort- 
able, indolent life I lead here; I read a little, 
write a little, and dream a good deal. Here 
the sun does not rise so early as it does down 
at Riverby. ' Tired nature's sweet restorer ' 
is not put to rout so soon by the screaming 
whistles, the thundering trains, and the neces- 
sary rules and regulations of well-ordered 
domestic machinery. Here I really ' loaf and 
invite my soul.' Yes, I am often very melan- 
choly and hungry for companionship — not 
in the summer months, no, but in the quiet 
evenings before the fire, with only Silly Sally 
to share my long long thoughts; she is very 
attentive, but I doubt if she notices when I 
sigh. She doesn't even heed me when I tell 
her that ornithology is a first-rate pursuit for 
men, but a bad one for cats. I suspect that 
she studies the birds with even greater care 
than I do, for now I can get all I want of a 
bird and let him remain In the bush, but Silly 
Sally is a thorough-going ornithologist; she 
must engage in all the feather splittings that 
the ornithologists do, and she isn't satisfied 
until she has thoroughly dissected and di- 
gested her material, and has all the dry bones 
of the subject laid bare." 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 21 

We sat before the fire while Mr. Bur- 
roughs talked of nature, of books, of men 
and women whose lives or books, or both, 
have closely touched his own — chiefly of 
Emerson and of Whitman he talked, the men 
to whom he seems to owe the most, the two 
whom most his soul has loved. 

He told of his first bite into Emerson — it 
was like tasting a green apple — not that 
Emerson was unripe, but that Burroughs 
wasn't ripe for him. A year or two later he 
tasted again. '"Why, this tastes good,' I 
said, and took a bigger bite." Then he pro- 
ceeded to devour everything of Emerson's 
that he could find. " I was dominated by 
him. I unconsciously Imitated his style. I 
was Jonah In the whale's belly — the great 
fish swallowed me. As soon as I began to 
realize this, I said to myself, ' See here, this 
will never do, I must be myself — not a 
feeble imitation of any one, not even of Emer- 
son.' " It was then that he began to write 
on outdoor themes to see, he said, if he could 
get the Emersonian musk out of his gar- 
ments. He buried his garments In the earth, 
as It were, that the earth might draw out this 
rank suggestion of Emerson. The "Emer- 
sonian musk" must have been pretty strong 
in his early essays, notably In one called " Ex- 



22 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

pression," which was published anonymously 
In The Atlantic Monthly In i860. Poole's 
Index attributed this essay to Emerson, and 
even as acute a critic as Professor Hill of 
Harvard has done the same — the latest edi- 
tion of Hill's Rhetoric, I find, continues to 
quote from this essay by Mr. Burroughs, 
crediting it to Emerson. Within the past 
year, however. Professor Hill has been In- 
formed of this error, and says It shall be cor- 
rected In later editions. 

As soon as Mr. Burroughs began to write 
on outdoor themes, on things dear and famil- 
iar to him, he found that he had some things 
of his own to say, and, to his great surprise, 
he found that readers liked to hear him say 
them in his own way. 

" I remember the first time I saw Emerson," 
he continued, musingly; "It was at West Point 
during the June examination of the cadets. 
Emerson had been appointed by President 
Lincoln as one of the board of visitors. I had 
been around there In the afternoon and had 
been peculiarly interested In one man whose 
striking face and manner kept challenging my 
attention. I did not hear him speak, but saw 
him going about with a silk hat, much too 
large, pushed back on his head; his sharp eyes 
peering Into everything — curious about 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 23 

everything. * Here,' said I to myself, ' Is a 
countryman who has got away from home, 
and who Intends to see all that Is going on.' 
Such an alert. Interested air ! That evening a 
friend came to me, and In a voice full of awe 
and enthusiasm said, ' Emerson Is In town ! ' 
Then I knew who the alert, sharp-eyed 
stranger was. That evening we went to the 
meeting and met our hero, and the next day 
we walked and talked with him. He seemed 
glad to get away from those old fogies and 
chat with us younger men. I remember carry- 
ing his valise to the boat landing — I was in 
the seventh heaven of delight. 

" I saw him several years later," he con- 
tinued, "soon after 'Wake Robin' was pub- 
lished; he mentioned it and said: 'Capital 
title, capital ! ' I don't suppose he had read 
much besides the title. 

" The last time I saw him," he said with a 
sigh, " was at Holmes' seventieth birthday 
breakfast, In Boston. But then his mind was 
like a splendid bridge with one span missing; 
he had — what is it you doctors call it? — 
aphasia, yes, that Is it — he had to grope so 
for his words. But what a serene, god-like 
air ! He was like a plucked eagle tarrying in 
the midst of a lot of lesser birds. He would 
sweep the assembly with that searching glance 



24 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 



as much as to say: ' What is all this buzzing 
and chirping about?' Holmes was as bril- 
liant and scintillating as ever — sparks of wit 
would greet every newcomer, flying out just 
as the sparks fly from that log there. Whit- 
tier was there, too, looking nervous and un- 
happy, and as if very much out of his element^ 
But he stood next to Emerson, prompting his 
memory and supplying the words his voice re- 
fused to utter. When I was presented, Emer- 
son said In a slow, questioning way: 'Bur- 
roughs — Burroughs ? ' ' Why, thee knows 
him^ said Whittier, jogging his memory with 
some further explanation; but I doubt If he 
then remembered anything about me." 

It was not such a leap from the New Eng- 
land writers to Whitman as one might im- 
agine. Mr. Burroughs spoke of Emerson's 
prompt and generous indorsement of the first 
edition of " Leaves of Grass " : "I give you 
joy of your free brave thought. I have great 
joy in It." This, and much else, Emerson 
had written In a letter to Whitman. The 
latter had shown the letter to Dana, who had 
said: "It Is the charter of an Emperor!" 
Whitman's head was undoubtedly a little 
turned by praise from such a source, and he 
did what he should not have done without 
first obtaining permission, he pubhshed Em- 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 25 

erson's letter In his next edition of the Leaves. 
This disturbed Emerson, but In spite of all 
that has been said on the subject, Emerson 
and Whitman remained firm friends to the 
last. 

" Whitman was a child of the sea," said 
Mr. Burroughs, " nurtured by the sea, cradled 
by the sea ; he gave one the same sense of in- 
vlgoratlon and of Ullmltableness that we get 
from the ' husky-voiced sea.' He never 
looked so much at home as when on the 
shore — his gray clothes, gray hair, and far- 
seeing blue-gray eyes, blending with the sur- 
roundings. And his thoughts — the same 
broad sweep, the elemental force and gran- 
deur, and all-embraclngness of the Impartial 
sea ! 

"Whitman never hurried," Mr. Bur- 
roughs continued, " he always seemed to have 
Infinite time at his disposal. He often used 
to take Sunday breakfasts with us In Wash- 
ington, but he was always late. I don't know 
that he was ever known to get there on time ; 
but when he did come It was with such 
a cheery, fresh, wholesome air. He radiated 
health and good humor. This is what made 
his work among the sick soldiers in Wash- 
ington of such inestimable value. Every one 
that came into personal relations with him felt 
his rare compelling charm." 



26 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

It was all very well this talk about the 
poets, but climbing " break-neck stairs " on 
our way thither had given the guest an appe- 
tite and the host as well; and these appetites 
had to be appeased by something less tran- 
scendental than a feast of reason. Mr. Bur- 
roughs knew this; and, scarcely interrupting 
his engaging monologue, went about his prep- 
arations for dinner, doing things deftly and 
quietly, all unconscious that there was any- 
thing peculiar in this sight to a spectator. 
And such a dinner! It was found that the 
host can not only write charming books, and 
successfully grow grapes, but that he can also 
cook a dinner that would do credit to an 
Adirondack guide — and when one has said 
this, what more need one say? 

" If all dainty fingers their duties might choose, 
Who would wash up the dishes and polish the 
shoes? " — 

Silly Sally, the " fireside Sphinx," not offering 
her services, except to dispose of certain 
chicken bones in her own way, host and guest 
washed and wiped the dishes, weighing 
Schopenhauer, Amiel, and Masterlinck in the 
balance at the same time. 

It was here that Mr. Burroughs told his 
guest about Anne Gilchrist, the talented, 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 27 

noble-hearted English woman whose ready 

acceptance and splendid enthusiasm of Whit- 
man's message bore fruit in her penetrating 
criticism of Whitman which stands today un- 
rivaled by anything that has been written con- 
cerning the Good Gray Poet. 

Like most of Mr. Burroughs' readers I 
am very fond of his little poem " Waiting," 
and, like most of them, I told him so, on 
seeing him seated before his fire after the 
work was done, with folded hands and face 
serene, — a living embodiment of the faith 
and trust expressed in those familiar verses. 
It would seem natural that he should write 
such a poem after the heat of the day, after 
his ripe experience, after success has come to 
him, — It is the lesson we expect one to learn 
on reaching his age, and learning how futile 
is the fret and urge of life, how infinitely 
better Is the attitude of trust that what is our 
own will gravitate to us In obedience to 
eternal laws — but it seemed strange to learn 
that this poem was written by Mr. Burroughs 
when he was a young man, life all before him, 
his prospects in rather a dubious and chaotic 
condition, his own aspirations then seeming 
likely to come to naught — but such, he told 
me, was the case when '' Waiting " found 
itself on paper. 



28 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

" I have lived to prove It true," he said, — 
" that which I but vaguely felt when I wrote 
the lines. Our lives are all so fearfully and 
wonderfully shot through with the very warp 
and woof of the universe, past, present, and 
to come ! No doubt at all that our own, — 
that which our souls crave and need, does 
gravitate toward us, or we toward it. 
'Waiting' has been successful," he added, 
" not on account of its poetic merit, but for 
some other merit or quality. It puts in simple 
and happy form some common religious as- 
pirations, without using the religious jargon. 
People write me from all parts of the country 
that they treasure it in their hearts; that it 
steadies their hand at the helm ; that It is full 
of consolation for them. It is because It is 
poetry alloyed with religion that it has this 
effect. Poetry alone would not do this; 
neither would a prose expression of the same 
religious aspirations do it, for we often out- 
grow the religious views and feelings of the 
past. The religious thrill, the sense of the 
Infinite, the awe and majesty of the universe, 
are no doubt permanent in the race, but all 
expressions of these feelings in creeds and 
forms addressed to the understanding, or ex- 
posed to the analysis of the understanding, 
are as transient and flitting as the leaves of 



The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 29 

the trees. My little poem is vague enough to 
escape the reason, sincere enough to go to the 
heart, and poetic enough to stir the imagina- 
tion." 

The power of accurate observation, of dis- 
passionate analysis, of keen discrimination 
and insight that Mr. Burroughs's readers are 
so familiar with in his writings about nature, 
books, men, and life in general, is here seen 
to extend to self-analysis as well^ — a rare 
gift — a power that makes his opinions carry 
conviction, because the reader feels that the 
author is not intent on upholding any theory, 
but only on seeing things as they are and re- 
porting them as they are. 

A steady rain had set in early in the after- 
noon, effectually drowning my hopes of a 
longer woodland walk that day, but I was 
then, and many a time since then, have been 
well content that it was so. I learned less of 
woodland lore, but more of the woodland 
philosopher. 

We spoke of the Harriman Alaska Expedi- 
tion in 1889, of which Mr. Burroughs was a 
guest. He seemed rather dissatisfied with his 
contribution to the elegant book about the 
expedition that was subsequently published. 
*'A thing has to stay in my consciousness a 
while," he explained, " and grow and develop 



Hit 13 iyu3 



30 The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

there before I can reproduce it on paper. If 
I could have waited six months or more, until 
I felt moved to write, I might have brought 
forth something more creditable; but they 
made me go about it deliberately, before I 
had carried it long enough, before I had made 
it my own. That is not my way of writing — 
I go to Nature for love of her and the book 
follows or not, as the case may be." 

In such converse passed the hours of a 
memorable day in that humble retreat on the 
wooded hills, 

**Away from the clank of the world," 

and in the company of the poet-naturalist, 
John Burroughs. So cordial had my host 
been, so gracious the admission to his home 
and hospitality, that I left the little refuge 
with a feeling of enrichment I shall cherish 
while life lasts — I had sought out a favorite 
author, I gained a friend. 



